VOTERS QUESTION COMELEC PARTIALITY IN APPOINTING CITIZEN ARM

The clamor for public awareness is now paying off as voters are now not only perusing the qualification of national and local candidates they plan to vote but are now also scrutinizing even church-based electoral watchdogs being blindly tapped by the Commission on Elections (COMELEC). Some quarters have recently questioned the urgency behind the poll body’s accreditation of the Parish Pastoral Council for Responsible Voting or PPCRV given that only a mere twenty days have passed from the time of the organization’s filing of its petition to the COMELEC’s promulgation of a resolution granting approval to said request.

The PPCRV headed by Ambassador Henrietta De Villa suspiciously bagged the accreditation to be COMELEC’s lone citizen’s arm that would unitarily launch voter’s education on poll automation and provide assistance to voters during the actual elections. Aside from this, the PPCRV is the lone private organization that is allowed to conduct poll watching during the canvassing of votes in every precinct in the country not to mention suspiciously being furnished a soft copy of the computerized voters' list and access to the precinct count optical scan machines prior to May 10, 2010.

In a nutshell, COMELEC’s rushed accreditation of the so-called watchdog has only given the PPCRV a right to monopolize voters’ education on poll automation which some unscrupulous individuals within the organization - who almost always exist in any innocent-looking group - could possibly influence to serve the benefit of a certain presidential wannabe or even a political party. Access to voters’ list and the voting machines prior the actual election could also lead corrupt quarters within the PPCRV to possibly tamper the data in exchange for monetary remuneration from the highest bidder, a scenario that we are all aware is fairly probable to transpire in our country.

An unimpeachable source pointed out that the PPCRV suspiciously timed the filing of its petition on October 5 in the midst of a public turmoil aptly tagged as the aftermath of super typhoon Ondoy which naturally left all of us focused on relief and rescue operation for thousands of our needing Kababayans. A few days later on October 14, the COMELEC heard the petition noting the lack of oppositor – an expected result of PPRCV’s non-compliance to a COMELEC order to cause publication on three separate newspapers within a period of three successive weeks – on the organization’s petition. On October 26, or twelve days after the first and only hearing, the poll body blindly approved the request.

Curiously, the process was indeed rushed. However, the important question should be this: was it done to serve the COMELEC or the PPCRV?